Abstract
One of the challenges South African teachers face is the number of learners receiving instruction in a language ‒ most commonly English ‒ that is generally their second, third or fourth language. It may even be a language they have not been exposed to before, considering the many cross-border and continental learners seated in local classrooms. This cultural and linguistic diversity, coupled with the constant need to promote inclusivity, places heavy demands on teachers. The teaching of Afrikaans as an additional language could thus serve to embrace methodologies that are focussed on cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource rather than a deficit or problem to address. Furthermore, novel teaching and learning strategies aligned to 21st-century skills such as teamwork, adaptability and social networking ought to be introduced in order to prepare learners for the future awaiting them in the ever-changing corporate world. The pedagogy of multiliteracies was already introduced in the 1990s, and South African scholars such as Janks (2010), Janks and Vasquez (2011), Stein and Newfield (2016) and Engelbrecht (2019) have broadened this field. This study contributes to the field of multiliteracies and how this pedagogy manifests in a culturally and linguistically diverse grade 11 Afrikaans first additional language (FAL) classroom. The argument put forward in this article is the necessity of multiliteracies as an agent to facilitate additional language learning and the possibility of mining the what, why and how of the multiliteracies approach in an Afrikaans FAL classroom. Multiliteracies pedagogy encourages diversity, embraces technology and multimodality and in doing so, moves away from the autonomous and traditional literacy model (reading and writing) to a nuanced model of literacies, as reflected in the manifesto of the New London Group (1996).
Multiliteracies as an approach rests on four interdependent tenets. Firstly, situated practice emphasises the prior knowledge and situated experiences of all learners. Secondly, overt instruction refers to the sum of interventions by the teacher who facilitates scaffolded learning in a constructivist process. Critical framing, the third tenet of multiliteracies, encourages learners to question assumptions and to transfer meaning to different social contexts. Lastly, transformed practice aims to teach learners to apply their new knowledge to their own contexts and to allow new knowledge to redefine and recreate themselves. The overarching research question is: How can a multiliteracies approach enhance learning in an Afrikaans FAL classroom? The sub-questions address the core characteristic of the four multiliteracies tenets in order to answer the main question. The first sub-question deals with the diverse situated practice of learners: how can diversity enhance learning in an Afrikaans FAL classroom? The second question refers to scaffolding interventions by the teacher’s overt instruction: how can learners’ previous experiences enhance their learning? The third tenet (critical framing) is directed at the cultivation of critical and authentic self-directed learning: how can learners be supported to take responsibility for their own learning? Lastly, to relate to the individual growth and meaning-making of learners, the sub-question is: how can multiple learning styles support learning in an Afrikaans FAL classroom?
To answer these questions, 17 participants between 17 and 19 years old in the Further Education and Training phase of a private school in Pretoria in the Afrikaans FAL classroom created a drawing depicting their experiences of learning Afrikaans (poetry, prose, film studies and grammar). This was followed by five matching blog entries on the different genres in which the participants described their learning experiences in a narrative format. These two data sets informed each other and were deductively analysed to find traces and patterns of the tenets of multiliteracies as described in the research sub-questions (diversity, interventions, self-directed learning and individualised learning) and how these contributed to successful learning. According to an arts-based analysis the visual representations of the participants’ experiences of learning Afrikaans were analysed. The visual data were first analysed separately and then compared to the narratives that participants wrote on the same day, explaining their drawings. This member-checking aligns with an arts-based methodology. Participants were permitted to express themselves in Afrikaans or English to prevent a possible lack of Afrikaans vocabulary from limiting their expression. This qualitative study was conducted using an interpretivist lens while an instrumental case study design helped to establish how the multiliteracies approach was employed in the FAL classroom. Findings show that self-directed learning that focussed on prior learner experience and guided facilitation resulted in learners not only becoming acquainted with diversity but also using each other as resources to learn Afrikaans. Their learning was enriched by exposure to different cultural and linguistic perspectives. Experiential learning, technological support and multimodal learning gave rise to redesigned knowledge and practices. The following technological sources were reflected in both data sets: electronic dictionaries, music, videos, films, television, photographs, white boards and cell phones. Technology and multimodality were integral to learning experiences such as collectively visiting cinemas and watching trailers of the film studied in class. Participants constantly developed, practised and improved 21st-century skills and in doing so, they created new meaning from the literary and other texts used inside and outside the classroom and were able to transfer their meaning-making to their social world and that of other communities. For instance, participants drew on different sensory impressions to explore texts about food while applying critical literacy to question assumptions and stereotypes and unmask ideological thinking. Participants benefitted from the various cultures represented in the classroom as different perspectives and opinions were exchanged. The findings suggest that a multiliteracies approach might become non-negotiable in a contemporary additional language classroom, especially in highly diverse contexts. There is a paucity of research in the field of Afrikaans methodology and these findings suggest that a multiliteracies pedagogy can be implemented successfully in a diverse Afrikaans FAL classroom.
Keywords: Afrikaans First Additional Language; experiential learning; inclusivity; multiliteracies; multimodality; self-directed learning; 21st-century skills